Anti-ISIS Coalition Makes Little Progress at Paris Meeting

PARIS — With Islamist militant fighters on the ground in Syria and Iraq moving faster than the international coalition arrayed against them, a meeting in Paris by coalition members on Tuesday seemed unlikely to reverse the momentum anytime soon.

With the French and American governments playing host, 24 foreign ministers or their representatives have been meeting here in the aftermath of serious losses to the Islamic State in both Iraq and Syria last month and the possibility that more territory will be lost in the coming days.

The group did not embrace any major changes and appeared set to continue on its current course, even though over the past few weeks Syria’s government had lost control of the strategically important city of Palmyra and the Iraqi government has lost control of Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province, to the Islamic State.

Both of those cities have strategic and symbolic significance, and now the major northern Syrian city of Aleppo appears in danger of possibly falling to the militants as well.

Comments from Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq, State Department officials as well as Laurent Fabius, the French foreign minister, painted a portrait of weaknesses in the fight against the Islamic State and offered reluctant recognition, albeit clad in the neutral language of diplomacy, that coalition efforts were inadequate.

The Islamic State takeovers of Ramadi and Palmyra “highlight the urgency to renew and expand our collective endeavor,” said a statement released at the end of the meeting, issued by Secretary of State John Kerry, Mr. Fabius and Mr. Abadi. The statement described the situation in Syria as “continued deterioration.”

As different political figures at the conference articulated the problems, it sometimes sounded as if they were blaming one another for what has gone wrong.

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, is stronger, better equipped, more lethal and more organized than ever before and Iraq needs more help, said Mr. Abadi.

Many in the coalition argued that no matter how hard the coalition fights, lost territory can never be reclaimed in Iraq unless that country’s Sunni population fights with the Iraqi Army, which is majority Shiite.

The situation in Syria has some similarities, with President Bashar al-Assad strongly supported by Iran and Iranian-backed militias, fighting a mostly Sunni insurgency.

But in Syria, there remain a significant collection of Sunni insurgent groups that are opposed to both ISIS and the government, and the United States is attempting to recruit some of them to be trained and equipped as a front line force against the militants. But the effort so far involves mere scores of fighters, and has struggled over the fact that most Syrian insurgents see fighting Mr. Assad as their main priority.

Mr. Fabius said last week that the Islamic State could not be defeated in Iraq unless the government made a major effort to bring in Sunnis and make them central players in the country. “There is no military solution without a political solution,” he said.

The majority of Iraqis are Shiites but in the areas where the Islamic State has made progress, the Sunnis are the majority sect. Many have been reluctant to fight on behalf of the Shiite-dominated government, which many Iraqi Sunnis mistrust.

Aware of the focus on inclusion, Mr. Abadi offered an array of plans at Tuesday’s meeting to include Sunnis. But he also described the Islamic State’s fighters and equipment as far more formidable than even six months ago, suggesting that his country needed far more help.

The number of foreign fighters has grown and they have begun to use enormous truck bombs that are “huge armored vehicles, full of explosives” said Mr. Abadi, adding that Iraqi missiles were ineffective against them. When the trucks explode, they are like “a mini-nuclear bomb” he said.

He complained that the coalition’s air campaign was “not enough” and that Iraq needed both more intelligence and surveillance from the United States-led coalition as well as arms.

Mr. Abadi said Iraq was looking for an official waiver from the international arms sanctions on Iran so that Iraq could purchase Iranian weapons. He also said he had tried to reinstate Sunni commanders in the Iraqi Army.

His concerns about foreign fighters were shared by the State Department, which in a background briefing by a senior official Monday said that there were now 22,000 foreign fighters from 100 countries. “This is something the world has never seen on this scale,” the official said.